A wise man watches his faults more closely than his virtues; reversing the order creates mostly problems.

We all have within us the potential for greatness or for failure. Both possibilities are an innate part of our character. Whether we reach for the stars or plunge to the depths of despair depends in large measure on how we manage our positive and negative potential. It is doubtful that, if left unchecked, your virtues will rage out of control. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true about your faults. Left unattended, faults have a way of multiplying until they eventually choke out your good qualities. The surest way to control your faults is to attack them the moment they appear.

The man who doesn’t reach decisions promptly when he has all necessary facts in hand cannot be depended on to carry out decisions after he makes them.

An essential quality of leadership is developing the ability to persuade others to align their goals with yours and those of the organization. Until you, yourself, are able to join forces with others in the pursuit of a common objective, you will never persuade them to join your cause. Effective leaders recognize the value of working together, and they learn how to follow directions before being entrusted with the responsibility for the performance of others. Good leaders show by example how they expect others to behave.

We are all human, with frailties, foibles, and insecurities. We each need to be appreciated for the uniqueness that makes us individual, and we need to be told that we are appreciated. Maintaining friendships requires effort and persistent expression, both in word and deed. Tell your friends often how much you appreciate them. Remember occasions that are important to them. Congratulate them upon their achievements. Most important of all, let them know that you are there for them whenever they need you.

A positive mind finds a way it can be done. A negative mind looks for all the ways it can’t be done.

Someone once said, “There are no truths; there are only perceptions of truth.” Whether or not you accept this statement, whatever you believe to be true will become your reality. Your subconscious mind will believe anything you tell it — if you repeat the words often and with conviction. When you are faced with a daunting task that you’ve never attempted before, focus on the potential for success, not on the possibilities for failure. Break the job down into smaller elements and tackle each one separately. The only difference between success and failure in any job is your attitude toward it.

It is a peculiarity of human relationships that it is virtually impossible for one individual to have a lasting positive influence upon members of a group of negative thinkers. Usually, it works the other way. You cannot maintain a positive, productive attitude if you spend all your time with negative people. Those who have wrecked their own lives (and usually blame their misfortune on others) are not the kind of people who will help you achieve success in your own life.

Choose your friends and associates carefully, and refrain from complaints about your job, your company, or any individual. Spend your time with positive, ambitious people who have a plan for their lives. You will find that their optimism is infectious.

If you don’t want your life to be “messed up,” don’t fool around with those who have messed up theirs.

Worries, like sheep, seem to flock together. One worry thought leads to another, and soon you are overwhelmed with the potential for problems.

When you allow yourself to play the “what if?” game — to speculate about additional problems that one potential problem might cause — worries multiply, each making the next seem worse.

If you must play the “What if?” game, play it to win. Focus on solutions, not on the problems themselves and the additional problems they might create. However serious your worries may seem when they awaken you at midnight, if you analyze them carefully, you will find that every problem has a solution. The worst thing about worry is that it attracts a whole flock of relatives. We do not worry over conditions once we have reached a decision to follow a definite line of action.

And to make matters worse, if you can’t manage your own mental attitude, what makes you think you can manage others?

Why is it that often those who believe they would be the best managers of others — if they were only given the opportunity — haven’t learned to manage themselves properly? Before you can ever have any hope of managing others effectively, you must first learn to set an example for others to follow. It is simply impossible for you to inspire others to high levels of achievement if you cannot inspire yourself to do the same.

Don’t make the mistake that many others make by saying, “When they make me a manager, I’ll show them I can manage.” The first move is yours. You must first prove yourself worthy.

Cookie mogul Wally Amos is fond of quoting the saying, “The mind is like a parachute. It functions best when opened.”

When you open your mind to the possibilities, objectively analyze information, and refuse to allow your personal preferences and biases to influence your judgment, you will be able to perceive great truths that have been overlooked by others.

A closed mind, though, will cause you to miss out on some of life’s greatest offerings. If you find yourself disputing the facts, or if you keep attempting to revise them to support your beliefs, ask yourself, “Why am I so unwilling to accept this information? Am I being logical, or am I simply allowing my emotions to cloud my judgment?” The worst mistake you may ever make is trying to persuade yourself to accept a false truth. It is inappropriate to try to fool others, but when you fool yourself, disaster is sure to follow.

Always telling the truth helps keep the mind open. It does not have to stay in motion remembering previous stories to keep them straight. Most importantly….those around you will feel it!

A closed mind stumbles over the blessings of life without recognizing them.

To the untrained eye, a geode looks pretty much like an ordinary rock. But a trained geologist knows that inside the geode there is a beautiful crystal lining.

The story is the same for those who refuse to examine new possibilities because their minds are closed. Life’s greatest opportunities, like the geode, often come in ordinary packaging. Do not allow yourself to become such a creature of habit that you simply go through the motions and let life happen to you.

Just taking a new route to work, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, reading a newspaper instead of watching television, or visiting a museum at lunchtime will stimulate your thought processes and may help you open your mind to new possibilities.

Clarence Saunders made millions by borrowing the self-help cafeteria idea for the grocery business and naming it Piggly Wiggly.

The founder of the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain was a low-level employee in a corner grocery when he visited a cafeteria and got the idea that the same techniques could be applied to the grocery business. He was ridiculed by experts, but he was convinced that the idea was a good one. Saunders persevered, and his adaptation of the self-service idea to the grocery business led him to become the father of the modern supermarket.

It is often true that a great idea alone is not enough to achieve success. Implementation may require as much as or more imagination than coming up with the idea originally. Those who study such things, however, report that when you have a really good idea, even if you can’t prove it, you will intuitively know that it is good. If you’re convinced, stick with it. Others will eventually recognize the value of your idea.

Actions, not words, are the greatest means of self-praise.

There are times when you will be asked to put yourself forward, to compete for a position or a contract, and you will have to speak about your accomplishments. Naturally, you will want to put the best foot forward. Be certain, however, that when you do so, you are confident that honest inquiry will support what you say about yourself. If your actions have been wise and responsible, the record will show this. Leaders in any organization are those who say, “Let’s get going. Let’s do something rather than wait around to see what happens.” When your past actions demonstrate that you are a person who accepts responsibility and shows others the way, your career and relationships will benefit you accordingly.

Sound character begins with the decisions we make ….. our actions start in our mind.

No one really knows for sure how we develop self-respect, but the experts believe it begins at a very early age. Parents who show their children that they love them unconditionally — just because they are who they are — build a foundation of healthy self-respect that will sustain the children for the rest of their lives. From this foundation comes the moral and ethical decision making structure known as character.

Healthy self-respect should not be confused with egotism. An egotist loves himself for the most superficial of reasons, while a self-respecting person takes pride in qualities of character that he or she has worked hard to develop.

Why does your life direction start in your thinking?

Because the way that you treat yourself greatly influences how others perceive you. If you are a confident, cheerful, positive person, your co-workers, friends, and family will be attracted to your personality. If you are unhappy, negative, and always complaining about your situation, others will be repelled.

Even when at times you don’t feel very happy, by forcing yourself to behave in a positive fashion, you will find that you soon feel genuinely upbeat, because your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between an artificial emotion and the real thing.

When you behave positively, you will positively influence everyone around you — including yourself.

Fortunes gravitate to men whose minds have been prepared to attract them, just as surely as water gravitates to the ocean.

Failure seems to be nature’s plan for preparing us for great responsibilities. If everything we attempted in life were achieved with a minimum of effort and came out exactly as planned, how little we would learn — and how boring life would be! And how arrogant we would become if we succeeded at everything we attempted.

Failure allows us to develop the essential quality of humility. It is not easy — when you are the person experiencing failure — to accept it philosophically, serene in the knowledge that this is one of life’s great learning experiences. But it is. Nature’s ways are not always easily understood, but they are repetitive and therefore predictable. You can be absolutely certain that when you feel you are being most unfairly tested, you are being prepared for great achievement.

We human beings are the only creatures on earth who have the capacity for belief. That capacity, combined with our almost innate capability to distinguish right from wrong, provides us with a formidable power in our quest for a richer, more rewarding life. When you set goals for yourself, make sure they are based on doing the right thing for your family, your friends, your employees, and yourself. When others see that you are fair and just in your dealings with them and that you are a generous, principled person, they will move heaven and earth for you.

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.

The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at the moment of some crisis, through which they are introduced to their “other selves.”

Might throws itself on the side of those who believe in right. If you think you dare not, you don’t.

True friendship acknowledges imperfections, accepts them as part of our individual makeup, and focuses on our positive aspects instead of expounding upon our faults.

Your friends don’t like you to comment upon their failings any more than you like them to criticize you. When your friends are discouraged or disappointed in themselves, a word of encouragement will serve much better than a sermon.

To be the kind of friend you would like to have, be a good listener, offer advice when you are asked for it, and treasure the trust that your friends have placed in you. Praise them for their achievements and sympathize when they fall short, but avoid offering “constructive criticism” or playing devil’s advocate.

Honesty is a spiritual quality that cannot be evaluated in terms of money.

There are many practical reasons to practice honesty. It requires far less effort to be truthful than to be deceitful, and in the long term the risks are fewer and the rewards greater. But in today’s complex society, the boundaries of acceptable behavior have been blurred until they are sometimes indistinguishable.

Laws and codes of ethics establish minimum standards of behavior. Make sure you establish standards for yourself that exceed such minimums, a standard below which you will not allow yourself to fall, regardless of what others may do or say. Your own set of standards will allow you to decide quickly and easily upon an appropriate course of action when faced with a difficult problem.

Most of us expect more from ourselves than anyone else ever would, and we are painfully aware of our shortcomings.

Life is much more rewarding when we bring out the best in our friends not their faults.

Success attracts success and failure attracts failure because of the law of harmonious attraction.

In physics, positives attract negatives and vice versa, but in human relationships the opposite is true. Negative people attract only other negative people, while positive thinkers attract like-minded individuals.You will find that when you begin to achieve success more successes will follow. This is the law of harmonious attraction. When riches begin to come your way, you’ll be amazed how quickly they accumulate.

Train your mind to visualize yourself acquiring a specific amount of wealth or achieving a certain goal — whatever you most desire. Then use self-suggestion to persuade your subconscious mind that you can achieve your goal, and put your plan into action. When you use the tools that you have at your disposal to prepare yourself for success and visualize yourself as having already reached your objective, you can achieve any reasonable goal that you set for yourself.

Without a strong foundation built on positive character traits, success will not long endure. It is virtually impossible to fake good character. Phonies are quickly spotted because they haven’t the substance and determination to maintain the charade.

Developing good character begins with a positive attitude. Your desire to be a good, decent, honest, considerate person must first take place in your mind. When you make the decision to become a person of character, you will also find that you are much more willing to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do.

Great fortunes or modest fortunes are a blessing only when they are used in good part to benefit others.

Throughout this philosophy will be found the suggestion that thought, backed by strong desire, has a tendency to transmute itself into its physical equivalent